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Night of the Restless Spirits is a collection of heart-rending short stories that attempt to capture the 1984 massacre in all its complexity and contradictions. Sarbpreet Singh’s stories take the reader on a journey fraught with love and tinged with tragedy, frayed relationships, the breaking down of humanity and resilience in the face of absolute despair, blurring the lines between the personal and political.

In this insightful account below, author Sarbpreet Singh shares how the 1984 massacre impacted his life and how this collection of stories came to be.

In the fall of 1987, I left India for the US. As a young Sikh who had grown up in Sikkim — a state which borders Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and Bengal, my connection with all things Sikh was tenuous at best. When the story of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination broke, I was in my final year at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), in Pilani, Rajasthan, which was only a few hours away from Delhi but was far removed from the horrific events that unfolded there. We did have a few moments of alarm. The campus was invaded by ruffians under the command of local Congress leaders; Sikh students mostly went into hiding in their friends’ rooms for a day or so, as did I. There were a few violent incidents which were soon forgotten.

News of the ‘riot’ in Delhi did trickle through, but I don’t remember being particularly upset. I did look like a Sikh and was one, nominally, but to my everlasting shame, I didn’t think of the poor residents of the shantytowns of Delhi who had been butchered as ‘my’ people, particularly. Besides, like most non-Sikhs in the country and many, many Sikhs, particularly outside of The Punjab, I had a sneaking suspicion that we had ‘asked for it’. In those days, before the Internet, the press in India was tightly controlled; sometimes overtly and often voluntarily in slavish allegiance to the ‘National Interest’; every Sikh in India therefore, had the country’s collective finger pointed at him. The cycle of violence in The Punjab, which was fueled much more by cynical political agendas of every stripe, rather than a centralized Sikh insurgent movement, labelled each and every Sikh a villain and a terrorist. I know this because I experienced this first hand and carried the burden around for several years after I left Pilani and went to work in Bombay and Pune. The shouted insults. The suspicious looks. The muttered epithets. The incessant headlines that screamed out the collective guilt of the Sikhs relentlessly. Small wonder then that as a Sikh, I was bereft of self-esteem as well as compassion for the victims of 1984.

The pogrom was squarely cast as a spontaneous outburst in response to Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination and in classic Goebbelsian fashion it quickly metamorphosed into a ‘riot’. The focus rapidly shifted from the murdered, the orphaned and the violated, to the ‘evil’ Sikhs who openly rejoiced at the brutal killing of the nation’s leader. Any twinges of conscience or compassion that might have existed were supplanted by righteous indignation. The propaganda victory was decisive. Away from the Newspeak of the Indian government, I started discovering little bits and pieces that helped me, for the first time, form my own opinion about what had happened to the Sikhs of Delhi — and, of course, those targeted in scores of cities, town and villages across the country.

Somewhat to my surprise, my university library in New York yielded a treasure house of articles written from an independent perspective, almost completely by non-Sikhs. When I had visited Delhi in December of 1984, I had heard whispers about the ‘The Black Book’ within Sikh circles, which purported to tell the true story of what happened in the wake of Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. ‘The Black Book’ was a booklet titled Who Are The Guilty, a report on the pogrom put together by two Indian civil rights organizations, The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), led by Mr. Rajni Kothari and The People’s Union for Democratic Rights. In great detail, it documented what had happened in the neighborhoods of Delhi, based on eyewitness accounts. It fearlessly named names. High ranking Congress politicians and ministers; local Congress functionaries; local troublemakers and toughs, who seized upon an unprecedented opportunity to rape and pillage, and ordinary citizens who inexplicably turned against Sikh neighbors, by whose side they had lived amicably for years. The booklet was promptly banned by the Congress government and was unavailable in Delhi. Three years later, in the US, I was able to get my hands on a copy.

Another piece of writing which I discovered was the fearless reporting by Ms. Madhu Kishwar in Manushi. A word about Manushi: it was termed a ‘women’s magazine’ and had a small readership, but in reality was a rare independent and progressive voice in the India of the mid-eighties. Ms. Kishwar’s article detailed the pogrom as starkly and honestly as the PUCL report. The dark mutterings I had heard in Delhi were true! All of it had indeed happened. The capital of the ‘largest democracy in the world’ had indeed turned into a killing field where innocent Sikhs had been butchered with impunity by the very forces that were sworn to keep the peace in the land.

The third piece that had a profound impact on me was a paper by Dr. Veena Das, an anthropologist, published in the journal Dædalus. Based on interviews and field research in some of the poorest and hardest hit neighborhoods of Delhi, Dr. Das told the stories of several children who had been targets of violence during the pogrom. One of the most poignant stories in her paper was about a deaf mute boy called Avtar, whose father had been hanged by a lynching mob during the pogrom. Unable to articulate his pain in any other way, the child could only mime his father’s gruesome end.

The writings of these fearless and principled men and women helped me shed my share of the collective guilt that many young Sikhs of my generation carried around after the events of 1984. It created in my heart empathy for the victims, the children in particular, and tremendous respect for the few courageous ones who stood up for the victims, often at great risk to themselves and their families.

This was the genesis of  Night of the Restless Spirits.

—Sarbpreet Singh, author of Night of the Restless Spirits

We have acquired to publish a collection of poetry by Indian activist, poet, teacher and writer Varavara Rao. Titled Varavara Rao: India’s Revolutionary Poet, this book is being edited by N. Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy. It will be published under Penguin’s Vintage imprint and released in 2021.

Varavara Rao is one of India’s foremost revolutionary poets, and this book will be a commemoration of his immense talent and passion for poetry. His body of work is recognized as one of the strongest documents and critiques of Indian history since independence, and this collection of poems, translated into English, will be a record of his political beliefs and his assertion of the primacy of people’s rights. Rao is currently incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case. About two-thirds of the poems featured here were picked by the poet himself before his arrest.

Commenting on the book, N. Venugopal, who is one of the editors and the nephew of the poet, says, ‘This is like fulfilment of a long-cherished dream, as making Varavara Rao’s work accessible to English readers has been my dream for decade. As a person who has closely watched the making of his poems, as one of the first readers in manuscript form, I believe his poetry is an expression of his complete personality that blended social history, alternative people’s politics, people’s right to self-determination and unceasing urge for freedom. I am overwhelmed at this volume in English, and I thank Penguin Random House India, and particularly editor Elizabeth Kuruvilla, for taking up this wonderful project.’

Varavara Rao: India’s Revolutionary Poet is a book of firsts—this is the first time an authentic, representative collection of Rao’s poems is coming out in a single volume and the first time for some of Rao’s poems to be translated into English, exclusively for this edition. Editors N. Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy are working through various translations of the poems done over the course of six decades.

Meena Kandasamy says, ‘I am fascinated and incredibly excited to be taking on this enormous task of co-editing an anthology of writings by Varavara Rao. I remember looking at his name as a teenager in the newspapers of the day—a fierce and uncompromising poet. In my imagination, he was an icon, the very image of a rebel poet. Never did I imagine that I would one day have this rare honour of working so closely with his words, especially alongside my generous and brilliant co-editor, Venugopal. I am delighted that Penguin Random House India has decided to publish this anthology of his poetry, pooling his lifetime’s work into a comprehensive selection.’

Varavara Rao is a teacher, journalist, translator, public speaker, revolutionary writer, organization builder and has been a steadfast supporter of Naxalbari politics for five decades. But more than anything else, he is a revolutionary poet. He is the author of thirteen collections of poetry and sixteen books of prose (including seven books of literary criticism), all in Telugu. A collection of his letters from prison, Captive Imagination, was published by Penguin.

Elizabeth Kuruvilla, executive editor, Ebury Publishing & Vintage Publishing, Penguin Random House India, who commissioned the book, says, ‘The image of Varavara Rao, smiling and fist raised, as he was taken into custody is imprinted on our minds. He exuded an aura of optimism, fortitude and strength. Who is Varavara Rao? What does he stand for? Where better to turn for answers than to his own words, the poems that convey with such extraordinary power his emotions, his thoughts and purpose. Editors Meena Kandasamy and N. Venugopal are giving life and shape to this attempt to bring Varavara Rao and his work to readers in English. This is a collection that promises to stir emotions.’

Commenting on the publication of such a unique collection, Milee Ashwarya, publisher, Ebury Publishing & Vintage Publishing, Penguin Random House India, says, ‘Varavara Rao has been a symbol of gentle and graceful defiance. His fiery words and innate strength give hope to others to stay strong and follow what they believe in amidst challenging times. I am delighted that Varavara Rao’s poems will be available in English for a wider audience, and I congratulate the editors Meena Kandasamy and N. Venugopal to have made it possible. Thank you for choosing Penguin Random House India as the home for this exquisite collection.’

About the editors

N. Venugopal has been a poet, literary critic, journalist, public speaker and translator for the last four decades with about twenty-five books in Telugu and as many in translation from English to Telugu to his credit. He was in mainstream journalism for more than twenty years and has been running his own little magazine, Veekshanam, a monthly journal of political economy and society, for the last sixteen years.

Meena Kandasamy is a poet, translator and novelist who divides her time between London and Tamil Nadu. She’s published two collections of poetry, Touch and Ms Militancy, and three novels, The Gypsy Goddess, When I Hit You, and Exquisite Cadavers. She’s worked on poetry translations of Tamil feminist poets for Titled Axis (UK), female guerrilla poets for Guernica (US) and Tamil Dalit poets for Muse India.